PALOMA OAKENFOLD

I DON'T TELL HIM YOU'RE A WHALE ANGEL

You know, I don’t think you can say that you’ve lived until you’ve seen a whale. It’s like a big, black double decker bus that drives along the oceans skin.

And they’re silent! Silent. Not a peep.

And then- WHOOOOSH!

They shoot out this enormous fart of water into the air and it falls- like- like mist- like tears…But before it falls there’s a micro second where it hangs. Where the water’s neither up nor down… and it is at that precise moment;

that Inuit’s believe that you can see directly into a whales soul.

Lydia!… Inuits, you know?… Like Igloo people?!

And you know what else is cool?!

When they flip themselves into the air!

Errr yes they do.

I swear!

Don’t you believe me?

They flip themselves into the air twenty foot, thirty foot, I dunno it’s not the point!… The point is the whale flattens out… and if you hadn’t seen them leave the water, if you’d been lookin’ away, you might think…. well, you might think the whale was descending from heaven.

Well, ever since I seen that, I can’t get it out of my head…I keep thinking, well I keep thinking that that’s what angels must look like.

What happens when we die?

We become whales.

And we float through endless blue.

And nothing can touch us because we are so strong.

And we sing.

And the best of the lot is that we are all men, sperm whales, so we’re safe… we’re safe.

We have a whale of a time.

You’re my whale angel.”

Corinne is alone in the world. Since her little sister died, she finds it easier to talk to the dead than the living. Until she makes a new friend… In Frida Khalo. A story of painting, letting go and mono-brows.

EXTRACT

Performed by Emma Richardson at the Vault Festival March 2017 and the Fish Factory, Falmouth in December 2014